


what it costs

by alderations



Series: Whumptober/Mechtober 2020 [15]
Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Possession, Science, Temporary Character Death, Whumptober 2020, hurt lil bit of comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:00:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27039103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alderations/pseuds/alderations
Summary: “Raph, I—I think something’s gone wrong.”Marius says that at least once a day, so Raphaella doesn’t look up at him. “Come sit with me, and I’ll take a look at it once I finish these readings.”(Whumptober Day 15: possession/science gone wrong; Mechtober Day 13-15: sunlight)
Relationships: Raphaella la Cognizi & Marius von Raum
Series: Whumptober/Mechtober 2020 [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1950916
Comments: 9
Kudos: 67
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	what it costs

“Raph, I—I think something’s gone wrong.”

Marius says that at least once a day, so Raphaella doesn’t look up at him. “Come sit with me, and I’ll take a look at it once I finish these readings.”

He doesn’t move, just clears his throat and hovers in the doorway until Raphaella gets sick of waiting for him and turns. It immediately becomes apparent that he’s not fucking around this time. Marius’s eyes are glowing, bright enough that Raphaella can’t even look at his face, and he’s emitting enough heat that she could  _ possibly  _ use him as a space bunsen burner.

The look on his face—at least, what she can see through the light—indicates that now is not the time to be searching for potential uses for his newfound condition.

“When did this happen?” she asks, trying to keep her voice as level as possible and cursing internally when it wavers. She’s the scientist here. She needs to stay level-headed.

Marius frowns. “Just now? You think I’d just walk around twiddling my thumbs like this?”

Alright, he’s feeling well enough to be sassy, at least. “Do you… feel anything? Other than hot?”

“I mean. I feel like I have a fucking sun inside my skull. I can barely see. It, uh. Hurts. Really bad.”

That’s not a great sign. Raphaella stands up and goes to press the back of her hand to his forehead, but she can’t get close enough without wincing away from the heat. “Let’s, uh… I think I can turn the thermostat way,  _ way  _ down, and then we’ll go from there…?”

He scowls. “So you have no idea what did this. None of your experiments? All that time you spend tinkering with my arm, and—”

Before he can finish his accusations, he stops short with a choked gurgle. The light, somehow, pulses even brighter. “Marius?” Raphaella prompts, taking a step back. “Marius. Are you in there?”

For a second, nothing happens. Those blazing eyes continue to stare at her, blank and expressionless, and then Marius’s mouth starts to move, but the sounds coming out are nothing like any voice Marius has ever produced.  _ “Y’ai’ng’ngah Yog-Sothoth,”  _ he murmurs, listing from side to side as if suddenly drunk.  _ “H’ee l’geb f’ai throdog uaaah—” _

“Stop,” Raphaella shouts, picking up the nearest beaker and chucking it at his head. It shatters. Marius goes down in a pile of mismatched, frivolous fabric, his body slumped against the lab stool where he usually sits when he feels like bothering her, and after a moment’s hesitation, Raphaella rushes forward and grabs him by the shoulders.

He’s no longer glowing, though he still feels warmer than a human should. “Marius,” she hisses, shaking him. “Marius, what the  _ fuck  _ was that? Wake up.”

Marius is, as far as she can tell, unconscious.

“That’s not funny,” Raphaella insists, getting louder as frantic fear takes over. “Look, I’ve done plenty of weird shit with your mechanism, but nothing that—nothing that should be summoning fucking outer gods, I don’t know—I don’t know what that was. Marius, come  _ on!” _

She drags him into her lap, slapping his face gently in an attempt to rouse him, but no matter what she tries, Marius lies limp and unresponsive in her arms. At first, Raphaella is confused, but the longer he stays unconscious, the more panicked she becomes. Because if something happens to him, even if she didn’t  _ knowingly  _ cause it, it’s her fault. She’s fucked around with their mechanisms enough times to know that. His works—she knows it works, she’s seen him die a dozen times and come back with a furious grin painted on his face, but she’s never seen a human emit sunlight from their fucking face, and for once, she’s in way over her head.

When continued slapping and shaking doesn’t work, Raphaella gathers what’s left of her wits and then picks him up. Marius’s body is, as always, uncomfortably light in her arms, but she’s grateful at the moment, since she’s almost shaking too hard to carry him. She deposits him on the operating table on the far side of the lab, shoving aside the nearby tray of surgical implements in hopes that she won’t have to use them. Maybe he just needs a good rest. Maybe he’s playing a prank.

It would have to be a  _ very  _ elaborate prank to hide his pulse, though, so she presses two fingers to his carotid and waits for the familiar thump of blood rushing to his head.

Nothing.

Raphaella panics. Distantly, she recognizes how ridiculous this is—she’s murdered hundreds of people at this point, many on this very operation table, and none of their lifeless bodies ever bothered her that much. Hell, she murdered her best friend for the wings fluttering anxiously at her back. Maybe she came to regret that after a few centuries, bouncing from planet to planet without anyone to keep her company for more than a few weeks. That’s how long it usually takes for them to realize that she’s, well, a bona fide mad scientist. And then she’d picked up Marius, bleeding out from the tattered remains of his arm and yet still watching her with the feverish eyes of a man who  _ needed  _ to see more of the universe. She barely gave herself time to think. And as annoying as he is most of the time, she wouldn’t give up his companionship for anything.

Though, apparently, she won’t have a choice.

It’s been hundreds of years since Raphaella has even felt like crying, but there are tears sitting hot and miserable in the corners of her eyes as she bends her head over Marius’s unmoving chest. After all the stupid shit they’ve done together, he’s just going to collapse on her? And that’s  _ it— _ no second chances, or fifteenth chances, because he’s just  _ gone.  _ He already feels cold when she presses her face to the stupidly intricate brocade of his waistcoat, desperate to hear his heart through all the layers of poorly-tailored fabric. Again, of course, she hears nothing.

“Please,” she begs. “Marius, I can’t—I can’t do this alone again. It’s so much worse than I  _ ever  _ fucking imagined.”

A moment passes, and then he takes a horrible, rattling gasp and spasms under her touch.

_ “Marius!” _ Raphaella stands up straight, getting an arm around his shoulders to help him sit up, as Marius coughs hard enough to do permanent tissue damage and flails his arms every which-way. “It’s okay, you’re okay,” she reassures him, even though that’s patently untrue. “Are you with me? For real, this time?”

He blinks up at her, eyes hazy but blessedly, beautifully dark. “I—I’m—I’m real,” he says.

Raphaella wants to wipe the tears off her face, but that would mean admitting that she’s crying, and then he’ll make fun of her for the rest of eternity. “You fucking  _ scared  _ me,” she admonishes, pulling him into a hug. “You can’t just—go all eldritch on me like that.”

“Wait, I… what?”

They’re both silent for a moment, though Marius slowly wraps his arms around her and returns the hug. “You, um. You started… chanting? And your eyes were… you said it felt like there was a sun in your head.”

“I—I don’t remember that,” Marius admits.

Raphaella pulls back and holds him by the shoulders, studying the honest concern on his face. “That’s probably for the best,” she says after a moment, and it’s true—she wouldn’t want to remember what that felt like either. “Let’s, uh, let’s get you some water.”

As she turns to fetch a glass of water from the nearest non-chemical sink, Raphaella thinks of the way Marius’s body wavered as if in a violent wind that only he could feel. She thinks of the blinding blaze in his eyes, the anger with which he had insisted that something was  _ horribly  _ wrong, the words tumbling from his lips as something unspeakable spoke through him.

She decides, for now, not to burden him with the rest of the story.

**Author's Note:**

> WOW today is a very much struggling to write day press F for alder's brain cells. I have a job interview tomorrow, for a job that would be full-time but hypothetically less, y'know, emotionally destructive than working retail. I'm very anxious about the interview so it's REALLY hard to squeeze words out of the brain meat.
> 
> However, I am Very Taken with the possibilities of Marius and Raph traveling together before they meet the rest of the mechs. I just think... they are friends and they love each other perhaps? This could be considered a direct sequel to (looks up my own titles) unwinged, wherein Raph learns that being immortal fucking sucks (though she seems less bothered than the other mechs tbh) and she is therefore very glad to have a companion. also I love Marius.
> 
> leave a comment if you so Desire? and thank you so much for reading!! <3


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